Covid 19 Delta outbreak: Editorial - Auckland awakens from 84 days of lockdown

Businesses on Queen St in Auckland were yesterday getting ready to reopen. Photo / Dean Purcell

Editorial

EDITORIAL:

Jules Verne's novel Around The World In Eighty Days tasked the character of Phileas Fogg with circumnavigating the globe. Many Aucklanders, while dreaming about such a chore, have spent the same amount of days, with change, circumnavigating their homes.

But today, the errand is coming to an end with a slight easing to step 2 of level 3, allowing retail and some public spaces, such as libraries, to reopen and outdoor gatherings to increase to 25 people.

The concession for retail to open, with customers maintaining 2m distances and all in the store being masked, has naturally been welcomed by businesses and shoppers.

Naturally also, there are disappointments. Gyms and salons must continue to wait. It is hard to fathom the rationale of allowing up to 25 people to celebrate a wedding while two people cannot get together for one to cut the other's hair.

Bars, restaurants and cafes remain takeaway only, while customers can try on outfits in a clothes store.

But in each scenario, Cabinet has tried to balance people's needs with the hazards inherent. In doing so, there will always be frustrating exceptions and apparent contradictions. Almost every form of human activity and interaction has now been measured by overseas experience for the likelihood of viral transmission. Some situations are proven super-spreaders and will have to sit it out a while longer.

Just how much longer has been clearly pinpointed by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who has cited November 29, as roughly three weeks for Auckland to convert the first doses in it's 90 per cent vaccinated into second doses.

Monday, November 29, then is likely to be the day the city will move into the Covid protection framework known as the traffic light system - first red with a high level of precaution and then into amber and green where conditions permit.

The further easing into the traffic lights regime of course depends on case numbers and, particularly, hospital admissions remaining at manageable levels. Covid modeller Professor Michael Plank says lifting restrictions while cases are still doubling every 12 days is risky.

We should not be lulled into believing our days ahead are an automatic sequence of diminishing preventative measures. While we are near world-beating vaccination percentages, significant sectors of New Zealand are still not covered by the cloak of inoculation.

Talk of a "freedom day" is getting ahead of ourselves and tempts disappointment. It might also incite the sort of behaviours where Covid flourishes. Likewise, small but noisy protests yesterday are counter-productive to all that has been achieved.

Still, today is a day for New Zealand to appreciate what this nation has achieved, particularly with a Delta variant that continues to confound and bedevil other parts of the world. Much of our country has remained free of the virus while vaccinations could be carried out.

It is also a day to support the businesses which have clung on for their shot at trading again. Every dollar will make a difference. As the resourceful Phileas Fogg said, "a well-used minimum suffices for everything".